


Faith Is All I Hold

by talkingtothesky



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Guilt, M/M, Men Crying, Post-Episode: s04e13 M.I.A., Presumed Dead, Protective John, Season/Series 04, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 23:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4805702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Finch?" John called, tearing down the hall towards the bathroom, drawing his gun from its holster and hammering on the door with his other hand. "Harold, are you hurt?"</p><p>(Please read the notes for warnings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith Is All I Hold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [offkilter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/offkilter/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [Faith Is All I Hold (Chinese Translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6869908) by [lzqsk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzqsk/pseuds/lzqsk)



> Kilter prompted me with: 'Reese breaking down a door because he hears Harold crying on the other side.' I started to write to that, and then somehow ended up with a bucket of mid Season 4 angst. Set between 4x13 and 4x14, with detailed references to 4x11. Spoilers for all seasons.
> 
> Please heed the Graphic Violence warning - nothing actually happens in the course of the fic, but there are passing mentions of people having been shot in the head.

John let himself into Whistler's apartment and closed the door quietly. The place was cramped and basic compared to Harold's usual standards. It was also getting dark, the sun having set fifteen minutes ago. John could make out Harold's laptop bag on the dining table, his coat folded over the back of the sofa.

 

The shower was running. John relaxed a bit, anticipating Harold getting out with his hair damp, wrapped in a dressing gown. John yearned to just hold him. It had been a devastating week and a hug wouldn't erase a second of it, but any small crumb of comfort would be welcome at this point.

 

He went into the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice, then nearly dropped the carton when the noise from the bathroom changed. Over the steady drum of the water there was a faint wail, followed by an angry snarl and breaking glass, a thud.

 

"Finch?" John called, tearing down the hall towards the bathroom, drawing his gun from its holster and hammering on the door with his other hand. "Harold, are you hurt?" The bathroom door had one of those round twisting door handles with a lock on the inside. Unpickable, but easily destroyed. John flipped his gun over and prepared to ram it against the brass.

 

Before he could, the shower abruptly shut off. Harold's voice sounded shaky and pained. "I'm okay, Mr. Reese, there's no need to break the door down." A moment later the lock clicked. Forgetting Harold's privacy in his panic, John wrenched the door open at once. He half-expected to find a gunman, a Samaritan operative with a blade at Harold's throat. Eyes wild, he cased the room. Everything that usually sat atop the sink had been swept onto the tiles, which explained the breaking glass. The window was intact and shut and locked. No-one had broken in here. John's gaze landed on Harold. He was sitting on the closed toilet lid, his tie removed, collar undone, waistcoat unbuttoned and askew, but otherwise dressed. Harold's glasses dangled from one hand. His cheeks were blotchy, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. He hadn't been showering; he'd been crying with the water on to cover the noise.

 

"I've never seen you cry," John realized, dully. The enormity of their awful situation was hitting home.

 

"That is entirely deliberate," Harold snapped. Then, in a softer voice, "I didn't know you were dropping by tonight."

 

"I'm sorry. I should have called." John stared at the floor, put his gun away. He wondered if he should offer to pick up the broken glass, but decided it could wait. Harold would want time to pull himself together after this accidental humiliation. "I'll be outside."

 

As he turned to go, Harold reached out and caught John's arm. "No. We should talk."

 

John frowned. "Not in here."

 

Harold let go of John's arm and slid his glasses back onto his face. He looked weary, drawn. John almost reached out to gently rub his shoulder, thought better of it at the last minute. Harold might consider it patronizing.

 

Harold swiped roughly at his cheeks and chin with the back of his hand, then stood. John led the way back down the hall, visually checking the windows in the bedroom as he walked by. Harold's tie and jacket were on the bed. John shut the blinds in the living area and flicked on the lights, while Harold settled himself on the sofa. John returned to the orange juice and poured a second glass, carried both over to the coffee table. He carefully draped Harold's coat over his shoulders, then sat down beside him. Harold grimaced at him, couldn't quite manage a grateful smile. John's heart ached.

 

John cast around for something to say, settled on: "Thank you. You held it together while Root and I went batshit."

 

Harold huffed. "That's one word for it. To tell you the truth, I wish we could have done more, _destroyed_ more. But Root was understandably volatile enough without-" He cut off, hands rising to his face. John guessed what was the matter and dipped his fingers into Harold's trouser pocket for his handkerchief, offering it to him. Harold took it immediately and quietly blew his nose, averting the sneeze. Then he went on: "She appealed to it, you know. Like you did, for me." He glanced at John. John swallowed, tried to stop the dread from rising. Whatever had happened, it wasn't good. Down in the subway this morning, John had turned off his earpiece while Harold broke the news to Root, taken Bear for a long-overdue run, pounding out the remnants of his fury, ignoring the constant twinges in his back and shoulder.

 

"It seems the Machine agrees with our decision - it said _stop_. I fear it did so because we will discover her body and the Machine wishes to spare us that pain, as well as protect us from the danger of the search."

 

John let out a slow breath. It wasn't confirmation of Shaw's death. "Or it's keeping an eye on her for us and will let us know when it's safe to go get her." He countered, despite knowing how unlikely that sounded. Root had said it didn't know anything - John wasn't sure if the Machine was capable of lying to protect her. "Or she's fighting and she'll make it, even without the Machine's help."

 

Harold started to nod at him, taking on board his more optimistic interpretation, but moments later his face crumpled. "You didn't see her. Two hits to centre mass and the third time Martine was aiming at her head." The bitter way he spat out those last words left no doubt as to the extent of Harold's fury. Finch was right - John hadn't seen Shaw go down. He'd lost his grip on consciousness sometime soon after Lionel had laid him out on the floor of the elevator. "She wouldn't have missed, especially not at that range." Harold continued, dispassionately, looking blankly ahead, but his hands were shaking. His fingers were curled very tightly around the handkerchief. "I doubt even someone so uniquely strong as Ms Shaw could survive that." He was speaking far more frankly than he had done with Root. John's mind flashed on a small catalogue of soldiers he'd witnessed do just that, survive a headshot. None of them were memories he wanted to apply to Shaw.

 

John covered Harold's trembling hands with his. Harold made himself stop, going still. He turned in his seat and looked John full in the face. "Ms Groves has gone, John. She said goodbye to me. It's possible she's not coming back. We're down to two people trying to fight this war and the other side has already won."

 

John's eyes widened as he listened, until he couldn't bear it anymore. "Shhh, shhh." He drew Finch into his arms. Harold tucked his face into John's shoulder and clung on like he was drowning. John swept his palms up and down the curve of Harold's back, helpless. Hearing him talk like this was terrifying. Over the years, Harold had always done everything in his power to give John hope, even in their darkest moments. John had to find a way to return the favor.

 

He swallowed past the lump in his throat, blinking rapidly, and croaked out: "Three people. We still got Fusco," in as light a voice as he could manage. That earned him a muffled, fond snort. When he'd first flipped the dirty cop, he'd had no idea what an amazing friend and partner Lionel would turn out to be, to all of them. That loyalty John had seen in him from the beginning had paid off a thousand times over. Despite Harold's initial mistrust, he had by now grown attached to the real detective. John squeezed Harold a little tighter, rested his chin just above Harold's ear. "And Root'll be back."

 

Harold shifted in his grip. "What makes you so sure?" His hand rose to cup the back of Reese's head, carding through his hair.

 

John shrugged. "She's too close to your Machine. It needs both of you."

 

Harold made an assenting noise in the back of his throat. John felt it in his chest.

 

"And me, if you'll let me," he added. John was aware of Harold starting to shut him out of missions, leaving him with the numbers, still trying to make him his Contingency. Trying to protect him. At the stock exchange, before everything went to hell, Harold had glared at him as John stepped onto the elevator as though he'd expected John to help with the cameras and then just go home. Harold could be stubborn to the bone. John needed to make him stubborn about holding onto hope for Shaw.

 

Before he could begin to figure out how to do that, Harold uttered another worrying statement: "I'm afraid this is all my fault."

 

John pulled back so he could look Harold in the eyes, squeezed his shoulders. "No. Don't you dare. Greer's to blame, not you."

 

"But I should have stopped him!" Abruptly, Harold shrugged off John's hands and got to his feet, rounding the table on unsteady legs. John's blood went cold. Harold paced back and forth, gesturing agitatedly as he talked. "There were plenty of opportunities. Root spent a year trying to warn me. If I'd just listened to her, months ago. Then the drives in the bank vault, the ones Arthur destroyed, I should have realized they were fakes. And there was the Congressman." He pointed at John, fist squeezed tight, underlining what John had been prepared to do that night. "I'd most certainly want him dead now, if it could guarantee Sameen were still with us."

 

John rubbed a hand across his own face. He sank back on the sofa, staring up at Harold. He had had chances to kill Greer. In Thornhill's office, the first time Greer had said Finch's name. It would have been an extreme response, given they had no idea what he was planning at the time. But to protect Harold's identity, along with all of his dangerous secrets (even the ones which had shaped John's own life), from prying eyes? He could have done it. And Shaw had been with him, that day, fighting alongside. A year later on a rooftop he'd rescued Harold from Greer. John would have been more than justified then, too. Greer had kidnapped Grace and blown up an entire building, killing dozens of people. He was a terrorist. In his former employment, John had killed far less guilty men than he.

 

Harold had gone to the window, parting the slats of the blinds with two fingers and peering out at nothing in particular. It was fully dark out there now, the streetlamp at the roadside casting orange glow. With his features outlined by it, Harold looked striking, furious, powerful. John stood, but didn't go to him.

 

"You can't do this to yourself."

 

Harold twitched, let the blinds snap back, lowered his hand to his side. He blinked slowly, turned to John, and the momentary impression of grandeur fell away. He was old, and tired, and human. "I know. It does no-one any good to mourn lost chances."

John thought of Harold's board of numbers and newspaper clippings, his list. It was sitting abandoned in the empty library. "So what do we do?"

 

"We clean up the mess." He visibly pieced himself together, strode past John, poking through Whistler's cupboards until he found a dustpan and brush, for the glass on the bathroom floor. John went to help him.

**Author's Note:**

> That was really depressing, I'm sorry. I posted some kissing in the snow fluff last week, if you need that now?
> 
> Also my apologies if the gun/door handle bit is really stupid. I couldn't think of anything clever to replace it. Please advise.


End file.
